Shared mindfulness in cockpit crisis situations: an exploratory analysis.

Despite the high reliability of current aeronautical technology and safety improvements, human error continues to be a factor in 60% to 80% of all aviation mishaps. Training is often focused on analysis of faulty procedures or lack of procedures over a more systemic approach. This research explores the existence of the psychological construct of shared mindfulness and examines how it is communicatively constructed and enacted in a high-reliability environment. The qualitative study examines shared mindfulness in 10 aviation student dyads in a decision-making crisis situation to identify the communication behaviors of the construct and to determine whether shared mindfulness may lead to more effective pilot decisions. Findings reveal both the existence of shared mindfulness as a communicative construct and seven inductively derived communication process categories that create shared mindfulness in a dyadic situation. Those dyads demonstrating more communication behaviors of shared mindfulness also made the most effective decisions.

Keywords: mindfulness; situational awareness; crisis communication; cockpit communication; dyadic interaction

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As our world grows increasingly complex, so do our organizational environments. Organizational members must deal with increasingly high levels of uncertainty, risk, and distraction. In times of crisis, when precious resources and lives totter between disaster and survival, individuals must be able to make sense and act quickly, yet heedfully with mindful attention. Perrow (1984) posited that crisis is associated with our growing technology and modem society's propensity to build more things "that can crash, burn and explode" (p. 9). Both the growth and our dependence on bigger, more elaborate systems contribute to increased crisis vulnerability (Sellnow & Seeger, 2001).

Crisis is defined as

a specific, unexpected, and non-routine event or series of events

that create high levels of uncertainty and threaten or are

perceived to threaten high priority goals including security of

life and property or the general individual or community well

being. (Seeger, Sellnow, & Ulmer, 1998, p. 233)

Crisis initiates an instantaneous set of novel conditions that are driven by high levels of uncertainty about cause, blame, and consequences. Stress and fear about the future are pervasive and intense (Sellnow & Seeger, 2001). It is precisely in this type of environment that mindfulness is both riveted to attention by the novelty of a situation while simultaneously distracted by its immediateness, intensity, and pervasiveness.

Despite being highly reliable, the aviation industry is susceptible to crisis situations in which pilot/air crew/air traffic control must routinely perform error-free so as not to endanger the lives of those aboard the aircraft and on the ground. Unfortunately, aviation research has shown that poor or inadequate communication is a common contributor to errors in pilot or flight crew decision making (e.g., Beaty, 1995; Chute & Weiner, 1996; Palmer, Lack, & Lynch, 1995; Shappell & Weigmann, 1997: Snook, 2000). Research demonstrates that more than 70% of aviation mishaps are related to coordination and communication issues rather than a lack of technical skill (Lautman & Gallimore, 1987: Rufflesmith, 1979). Furthermore, in dual-piloted scenarios, error ratios have increased rather than decreased (Shappell & Wiegmann, 1996). Moreover, the industry acknowledges that the basic premise of crew resource management (CRM) (1) to reduce the number and severity of aircrew errors has been thwarted (Helmreich, Merritt, & Wilhelm, 1999). A focus on crew coordination and participation, if lacking in mindfulness, will not reduce error. Skitka, Mosicr, Burdick, and Rosenblatt (2000) in an automation-related study of omission and commission errors found that a second crew member did not guard against automation bias, which is a reliance on the aircraft's automated control system decisions rather than verifying the automated commands against other available data. A second person in the cockpit did not decrease the tendency to incorrectly follow automated commands even when contradictory information was present. Moreover, performers equally failed to notice and respond to system irregularities when not prompted by the system. For example, the aircraft's automated system controls landing speed. However, in addition to the automated system information (which can malfunction), crew members have visual data with which to determine whether the landing speed is appropriate. Thus, if crew members work together well but not mindfully, the human error factor remains an issue and, in some instances, actually increases. Overall, this situation suggests that even a small improvement in crew interaction and communication will have a significant impact.

Moreover, the repetitive, ritualized nature of most aviation communication can foster error through mindless overuse of familiar communication patterns. Cushing (1994) posited that it "induces a degree of ritualizalion, with statements and situations losing their cognitive impact and participants failing into a pattern of simply going through the motions for their own sake" (p. 46). Similarly, an analysis of en route operational errors and the impact of situational awareness of air traffic controllers revealed that "unaware" controllers were likely to make two particular communication errors: incorrect read-back of altitude information and failure to secure a pilot acknowledgment of receipt of information (Durso, Truitt, Hackworth, Crutchfield, & Manning, 1998).

Communication and interpersonal interaction are significant factors in aviation error and subsequent pilot decisions in crisis situations. Although the aviation industry has invested heavily in training to improve crew resource management, the research statistics suggest there remains a missing element in improving overall effectiveness.

DEFINITIONAL ISSUES AND COMMUNICATION

Mindfulness is a psychological state in which individuals engage in active information processing while performing their current tasks such that they are actively analyzing, categorizing, and making distinctions in data (Langer, 1997). Langer and Moldoveanu (2000) espoused the notion of a mindfulness gap in which they assert that even surgeons and pilots are not immune to moments of mindlessness in their role performance.

Interestingly, the focus of prior research has been solely on individual mindfulness. Mindfulness is a recognized concept in communication with a significant body of previous research. It has been studied in such contexts as its impact on sense making (e.g., Weick 1995, 2001: Weick & Meader, 1993; Weick & Roberts, 1993: Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001 ): mindfulness/mindlessness in language and social interaction (e.g., Bevelas & Coates, 1992: Burgoon & Langer, 1993; Langer, 1992; Langer, Blank & Chanowitz, 1978): a psychological condition of personal engagement and disengagement at work (Kahn, 1990): and newcomer informationseeking behaviors (e.g., Casey, Miller, & Johnson, 1997; Louis, 1980; Miller, 1996). In addition, Burgoon, Berger, and Waldron (2000) studied the implications of mindfulness in relation to several social issues such as reducing stereotyping and cross-cultural misunderstanding. Timmerman (2002) investigated the moderating effects of mindlessness or mindfulness on media richness and social influence. King and Sawyer (1998) examined mindfulness and mindlessness in message production during interpersonal encounters. This line of communication scholarship suggests that communication is germane to the construction of a mindful or mindless state.

However useful, past work in mindfulness research does not acknowledge the joint construction of a mindful state through the process of human interaction. To view mindfulness as it occurs within an interpersonal interaction, the elements of mindfulness as they relate to an involved state must be articulated. If mindfulness represents the active information processing at the individual intrapersonal level, shared mindfulness represents this activity at the interpersonal interaction level. Therefore, I propose the following definition: Shared mindfulness is a state of mindfulness achieved conjointly, whereby, in the communicative interaction, the individuals involved are in an active state of attending, responding, and perceiving information correctly. As a result, they are continually updating, attuned, and open to incoming data that are unexpected, disconfirming, improbable, implicit, and/or contested.

What is intriguing about mindfulness in relation to the aviation and communication research is, What would shared mindfulness look like? Furthermore, could shared mindfulness possibly be the missing element to effective CRM in reducing error in crisis situations?

The goal in the current study was to examine the construct of mindfulness as it is enacted through captain and first officer communication behaviors in crisis situations. The objective was to identify shared mindfulness in these dyadic situations and describe how it is communicatively constructed. To explore this objective, the following research question was posed for examination: What distinct communication behaviors might emerge in an aviation crisis situation to reveal shared mindfulness?

METHOD

The study involved 10 captain and first officer dyads composed of a voluntary sample of aviation students who participated in two crisis scenarios. Each dyad had 1 minute 45 seconds to read the crisis situation and a subsequent 2-minute discussion period to generate a decision response.